The Divide
by ilurandir
Summary: Severus Snape can be split into more halves than blood


**I**

Tobias Snape was an imposing man - thin as a beanpole, all lank and lean, but he could take over a room. He could darken it. Tobias Snape could suck the light from the flickering bulb in the kitchen, and absorb it somehow into himself and not let it out again, pushing Severus into shadows before his fists came down. He was not a person that emitted light. He had large hand calloused and rough, with such long fingers. They were delicate hands that could roll a proper cigarette, make a grand cup of tea, or tip Severus's face up to inspect a cut on his chin he'd gotten from running from the rough boys outside. They could be gentle when they didn't hurt so.

He noticed him Mum was different first because of the secrets. Secrets they kept from Da' and secrets from the other children in the neighbourhood - not that Severus played much with them anyway. He frightened them. They started calling him the Washer at the Ford because of his long dark hair and his oversized shirts that looked, sometimes, like frocks and his tendency to linger down by the river because of the Virgin's-bower vine which he picked for his mother's potions.

They kept these from his Da', when he was older, the potions, the little spells his mum did to help with the washing up. When he was very little there were accidents. Things falling over, a searing pain in his father's hand that left a small white burn scar where his thumb met his palm one evening when he'd reached too fast and frightening towards Severus. Once, when his parents were screaming at each other in the dingy kitchen, a window exploded inwards, showering them all with glass so fine it had been ground into dust - a white shining snow on their shoulders and in their dark hair that, if they weren't careful, drew blood.

Often, they screamed about her magic, and the magic that was in the boy. Yes, he knew his mum was different, and to Severus, her difference was something he clung to - a bond that they had - no one else could get in. For the longest time, he thought it was just the two of them. Everyone else ceased to matter much outside of the pungent, familiar smell of his mother's small cauldron on the warped and cracked kitchen table, least of all his father who was abrasive and often frightening, because where he was harsh and loud, his mother was quiet and subtle, and a peace settled over her when her capable hands crushed beetles out of their shells.

"You're losing me my own boy, Eileen," Tobias said darkly one evening.

**II**

He noticed the differences in his father much later. When you grew up with someone you ceased to hear the accents and the oddities of their speech. It wasn't until Eileen started taking him to the pubs to bring Tobias home, drunk and stumbling and reeking of beer that he began to suss it.

It was the anger in the pubs over the accent at first - the anger of the British at the Irishman singing patriotic songs in their own country.

_Tiocfaidh ár lá _and _Go bhfillead go hÉirinn go brách. _Severus could say these phrases from the time he was two or three. He knew what they meant in a sort of hazy way - they never meant anything more than the words and the shape of the strange words in his mouth. Our day will come. May I go back to Ireland forever.

Severus had no interest in Ireland, nor did he want to go back, nor was he sure which day, exactly, it was that they were waiting for, whether they were still waiting for it. His father seemed to think that they were... he certainly was.

"Maybe if you saved some of the money instead of pissing it all away down at the pub with your _mates_ we might go to Ireland, if you want to go back. _Éire go Brách _indeed, only you never do a God forsaken thing about it!" His mother shouted before Tobias's hand came sharply into contact with her cheek.

He heard his father's accent now. It's ups and down and his "Go to your room so, if you don't want to fuckin' eat." And yet he never heard it in his own voice, even when Lily said she could.

"It's how I can tell you're upset, Sev, you go all strange."

**III**

Severus was beginning to feel like his life was split into halves. Magic and Muggle, Irish and English both of which, he considered, totally at odds with one another. His father never ceased to remind him that he was half Irish on his side. The _normal_ side Tobias called it. The clean one, meaning Muggle.

His mother didn't ever have to remind him that he was half-blood. It was the magic that he looked forward to, the magic that would save him. And it was the magic that brought him to Lily, his saving grace all the times he couldn't stand to be in his own house another moment.

Chistmas was usually particularly bad for it. His father; almost - Severus thought - to be defiant, was Jewish, and his Muggle family tree could be traced all the way back to Bulgaria and the Ukraine. He didn't practice it, there was no Shabbat, no synagogue, no kosher foods, unless it was accidental, and yet he always chose Christmas to rage about the house. It was an excuse for Tobias, and not a religion or a belief.

"Nothing, none of my culture, none of my beliefs, Eileen, the boy barely knows where he comes from at all!"

"Please, you don't even know the first thing about anything other than Ireland's sorrows and how to get to the bottom of a bottle! Severus knows what matters, he knows what I've taught him because I _have_ taught him - certainly he knows better than your confused version of how the world should work! You're giving him empty words, Tobias! Irish they may be, but you never actually do anything about it yourself, do you, lazy sod!" And here she threw down the dish towel and leaned against the sink, all dark eyes and crossed arms, practically shaking with the tension of her anger. You think work's going to come to you sitting home on your arse all day long!?"

"The fuckin' mill's closed, Eileen, what am I supposed to do!?"

Severus slipped out the door into the snow.

**IV**

By the time he got to Hogwarts, finally _finally_ Hogwarts, it was the first thing, aside from his friendship with Lily that felt whole and complete. He was so tired of feeling at odds with everything, and wondered how his parents could have ever possibly married - as opposite as they were. This, at last, was wholly one thing or the other.

And yet, there in the library with Lily sobbing into her arms over her tranfiguration homework and Severus totally at a loss for what to do shook his head at her. "It's not because you're Muggle-born that it's difficult," he said, softly. "It's just difficult anyway. Besides, I'm only Half-Blood and I'm still better at potions than anyone.

"Excepting me, of course," she said, tears still sliding down her cheeks, but at least she was smiling now.

"Not likely," he said, smiling back.

And so it was that evening that he scrawled _This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince_ on the upper left corner of the inside cover of his book, to make her feel better. Because in the end, he was, he _had_ to be, at least a prince of all the halves in his life.


End file.
